A few days ago, Pete and I made yet another list – this one was off the charts – this list contained a list of most of the things that we needed to get done around here. Like now, seeing it, I felt overwhelmed; this was because I foresaw that I could not get all I needed to do done today. Instead, the list of things to do spanned a few days.

Yesterday I avoided looking at it. Today I am feeling a little less overwhelmed, the reason being that Pete went to Anchorage with our friend Judy, to see their mutual friend Jan, who is in the hospital. She’s been sick for a long, long time. This may be the last time Judy and

Pete ever see Jan. I decided not to go with them because my thinking is that my presence would only stress Jan out. She never took to me, so I tended to keep my distance from her. I was okay with this, and I think she was too.

I’m feeling less overwhelmed because I am here alone. Had I gone with Pete and Judy, I would not have gotten anything done. So any and all that I do get done will be an accomplishment, of sorts. Definitely an odd sort of logic here – call it Alys logic.

Ironically, thinking of Jan, and how she went about doing things. She was very analytical, perhaps the most left brained person I ever met. She was a math teacher – everything, in this respect, was compartmentalized. This included friendships – Pete, for example, was in charge of taking down trees and moving heavy stuff. And Judy often took Jan to Anchorage for her chemotherapy treatments. I have to say, it worked well this way for in this respect, Jan brought out the best in everyone.

Now figuring out what exactly I will do. The best approach is to look at my work day in relation to quadrants. I could get the horses and dogs out, but will instead wait until Pete gets home – this way we can get all the animals out at once. Here’s my new compartmentalized things to do list:

Upper quadrant:

Clean chicken coop.

Put old compost in buckets (will later put on garden beds).

Clear greens out of upper garden.

Middle quadrant:

Water celery in hoop house

Put potato vines on beds.

Harvest peas

Pick raspberry leaves for drying

Lower quadrant:

Finish moving buckets of gravel into horse pen

Spread gravel in horse pen.

Nail down plastic in hay shed.

There are many other things that need doing; these include moving the buckets of water into the cabin, as well as the worm buckets. But this is more than enough for now. Problem is, for each thing that I knock off the list, I end up adding two more. However, I’m not going to think about this right now. Instead, I’m going to begin work in the upper quadrant, and work my way to the lower quadrant. I think that Jan would approve.